‘I Was All Over The Place’: Suranne Jones Discusses The Realities Of Returning To Work After Having A Baby

Doctor Foster has made a triumphant return to screens this year, seeing Dr Gemma and her scheming ex Simon battling against each other in a bitter post-divorce war.

The second season of the BBC drama has seen Gemma fly off the handle during her attempts to get revenge on her cheating former husband –
and most recently the pair got pretty intimate, despite admitting they hate one another.

But for Suranne Jones, who plays Dr. Gemma, her happy family life is actually the one thing that has helped her get into her character.

Speaking to the Mirror, Suranne has revealed being at home with her husband Laurence Akers, and one-and-a-half year old son, has helped her to understand the heartbreak that could accompany the loss of that family unit.

She confessed, “Being in a marriage and being a mother ­obviously helps with the devastation of someone betraying that.

“Also with the enormity of when you have a child, if you do separate, that something will always bind you and that actually you made that someone when you were totally in love.

“Then when you really hate each other, like in our story, you still have that person to take into adulthood. And you have to do it really carefully otherwise as much as you’re going to damage each other and you’re going to damage the child.

“So yeah, it gave me a gravitas and an enormity of the situation.”

Suranne returned to film Doctor Foster series 2 just six months after the birth of her first child, but confessed that the quick transition back into working life actually helped her to channel the erractic, anxious character of Dr Gemma in the show.

She admitted, “It was quite quick. I was still really tired and full of hormones.

“I was all over the place. It helped.”

While she’s previously embraced the single life when she was in her 20s, Suranne has also said that she’s now never happier than when she’s spending time with her son, who she is famously private about.